GENVEA: United Nations rights experts on Wednesday condemned the life sentence a Pakistani court handed a prominent rights activist, calling it a “travesty of justice.”
Mahrang Baloch, a 33-year-old from the southern Balochistan province, was arrested in 2025 on charges stemming from a protest in the coastal city of Gwadar the previous year, which sparked clashes that left a paramilitary soldier dead.
Baloch, the founder of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), was handed a sentence of life imprisonment last month on murder and terror charges, at an anti-terrorism court in the provincial capital Quetta.
“Dr. Baloch’s punishment is a travesty of justice, following an unfair trial and the misuse of counter-terrorism and murder charges to suppress peaceful protest and freedoms of association and expression,” more than a dozen independent UN experts said in a joint statement, adding that the court inferred intent to kill due to mere participation in a protest.
The experts, who are mandated by the UN Human Rights Council but who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations, said several additional cases remained pending.
“We are dismayed by the number of cases Dr. Baloch has faced, which aim to intimidate, punish and deter her and other Baloch activists advocating for victims of human rights violations,” they said.
The BYC has denounced extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances and arbitrary arrests in Balochistan — Pakistan’s most resource-rich province, where around half the population live below the poverty line.
Authorities deny breaching civil liberties and say ramped-up security is necessary to address a deadly insurgency in the border province.
Security forces are battling increasing separatist militant attacks in Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.
Convictions like that of Baloch “risk silencing independent voices in Balochistan and further shrinking civic space,” the UN experts said.
“Women human rights defenders have led protests against enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings and demanded accountability. In a deeply patriarchal security context, their leadership has challenged entrenched norms,” they pointed out.
“The misuse of counter-terrorism measures has deeply stigmatized them and heightened risks of gendered threats and reprisals.”
